the wider picture

[andyh4]

I fear some posters have misunderstood the thrust of my post. Although there may well be impacts for those who would want to work/study in the UK, the direction of my post was with regards UK citizens who might wish to work in or study in Europe. The research joint collaboration projects works in both directions but I suspect the UK will be a big loser. UK Governments are promising continued financing, but at what level? The current UK input? UK input plus the EU input? Even with the latter, the collaboration partners may decide to slowly withdraw because governments change and so do their policies. As with just about everything Brexit we are left with many more questions than answers. After 6 months (les 1 week) we should surely now be beginning to see some clarity, but instead all we see is more and more uncertainty

Gluestick is of course being deliberately mischievous by confusing N Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England with countries as recognised within the EU. Or as pointless would have it, "and by country we mean a sovereign state that is a member of the UN in its own right".

What the UK does internally in terms of university charging is its affair, just provided that EU citizens from outside the UK are afforded similar rights and costs.

[Gluestick]

[quote user="andyh4"]Gluestick is of course being deliberately mischievous by confusing N Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England with countries as recognised within the EU. [/quote]

[8-)]

[quote] What the UK does internally in terms of university charging is its affair, just provided that EU citizens from outside the UK are afforded similar rights and costs.[/quote]

Nothing preventing nation state universities from discretely agreeing pari passu study rights.

One of my consulting partners and a close personal friend now, spent one year at the university of Grenoble; and another year at the university of Trieste and then returned to Durham to complete his Modern Languages Degree.

And this was before the EU, per se, was even thought of...

[chessie]

Always makes me wonder when I read of 'funding from the eu' - excuse me but that is OUR money in the first place, being handed back to us minus commissions etc etc plus VAT.

All the references to the UK 'should remain in the eu and use it's influence';  it's tried - for 40 years it's tried, and been outvoted, and ignored time after time.

How about all the lies from the 'remain' side about the eu Army - denied by them time after time;  2 weeks after the Vote for Independence - surprise, surprise - plans for an eu army are well advanced. no-one told Clegg did they ?

What about Corpus Juris - how about defending that one ?

The 5 Presidents Report ?

Tax and welfare harmonisation anyone ?

Those who support 'remain' -

Please - tell us exactly where yuou think the eu will be in 10 years time ?

What marvellous progress will have been made in.......

Go on - do a bit of forecasting ;  the 'leave' camp have been sneered at for not knowing what they voted for, and what the plan is, or where the UK intends to be..

How about reversing that;  the supporters of the eu tell us the future of the eu - particularly for its young people, for the unempoloyed, for the hungry pensioners in Greece, for the 'open borders' - remind me how many countries are now putting up barbed wire.  

How many thousands of extra police will be needed on duty on New Years Eve in Germany ?

Chessie

[powerdesal]

andyh4 wrote:-

''Ah the good old days of the 60s and before.''

I wasn't referring to the 60s and before. During the 60s I was either a schoolboy or an apprentice so never travelled outside UK.

However, in the 70s I did travel throughout Europe without 'let or hindrance' ( as the phrase goes ), no visa needed, passport rarely even looked at when crossing borders, just a wave of the dark blue book.

I knew people of my generation who had taken up residence in Europe, were employed in Europe or who were just travelling. Why the assumption that things will be so different after Brexit ?

[andyh4]

But in your first post you specifically stated "Before the UK joined the common market ......."

I suggest that when you were travelling without let or hindrance the UK was already in the EEC.

Incidentally at around the same time I was also travelling and remember passports being checked on a fairly regular basis as we crossed borders. Perhaps I just looked dodgy.

[POB]

Sadly the world has changed since then.  You used to be able to pop down to the Post Office in the morning get a British Visitors Passport and cross to France in the afternoon. I don't expect that to return either.

[powerdesal]

Andy, Britain joined the Common Market ( The EEC ) on Jan 1st 1973, I was travelling in Europe, at various times, in 1970, 1971 and 1972 and subsequently as well.

[lindal1000]

My partner lived in France before the current EU arrangements. He had a job and was sponsored, but even then he was not legally allowed to transfer enough of his money back to the UK to pay his mortgage on his house there. Remember those days of currency controls? Yes it was possible but it was very much more difficult. The 70s are not a period I would like to return to personally; when there were very few older people because many people died before then of diseases that are now treatable and rampant sexism.

It's sad that people want to live in the past.

[chessie]

Currency controls - because of the Wilson government and the disaster of a Labour Government - remember 'the pound in your pocket' lies.

I too remember travelling around europe, and behind the Iron Curtain, in the late 60s.   Remind me - when we were 'frog marched' in the Common Market - just how many countries were members ?

And how many countries were there in the eec - 1973 ?

And I really get fed up when pelople sneer and comment 'people want to live in the past'.

NO - I don't;  don't know many that actually want to 'live' in the past.   It is just that we can remember when we had freedom to travel, when we had a Government who passed the Laws of the land and not had them imposed on us by a foreign agency;  who can remember when communities existed and people knew their neighbours;  when there wasn't this pathetic 'politcal correctness' - and the christian citizens of a christian country being told NOT to celebrate 'their' Christmas -

BECAUSE IT MIGHT CAUSE OFFENCE.

It is the attitudes, the safety, the security, the certainties of previous years -

but that does NOT equate to 'wanting to live' in the past.

It's rather subtle and nuanced position - maybe too subtle ?

Chessie

[woolybanana]

None of which was caused by the EU

[Gluestick]

Wooly: EU law being paramount to member state's law is indeed a product of the EU.

Probably, the PC fever is as well?

Any nation state which loses the primary ability to actually holistically govern itself, tends to destroy its culture and heritage. And finishes up with a bland, homogeneous, spineless, anodyne sort of androgen.

Perhaps worse, the growth of self-important fonctionaire, has most definitely been a resultant of Britain's EU membership: to whit, the interfering local authority morons, from such as Weights and Measures (as they used to be called).

Strange how the UK bureaucrats demand implementation of a wide range of EU diktats, well before the French, Spanish, et al even think about them......

[Gluestick]

Interesting, to me, that visas for travel between France and Britain were abolished in, err, 1946...

See Here:

[lindal1000]

I'm not sneering Chessie. I do, however, think that it's easy to look back at our lives 30 years ago and think it's so much better than now. We forget that we were young, fit and beautiful and the world was our oyster!

My life today is heaps better than it was in the 70s and 80s. I have never felt safer. Why? Because I was in London when the IRA were putting bombs on the underground, or in wastebaskets, and I had no choice about where I went or how I got there. I was close to one or two. For those living in Paris they may feel like I did then, but no different...

No one is told not to celebrate Christmas for goodness sake. No one stops you going to church, or wishing people a happy Christmas, or celebrating with your family and friends. I knew all my neighbours in the UK when I last lived there five years ago and I'm still in touch with them. Why? Because I made the effort to get to know them..and they were and are a very mixed bunch.

Life and your community is what you make it. Mine has never been better..which is why I think it's sad that people (not you personally) hanker after the past rather than making their present as great as it can be.

[chessie]

I'm not 'getting' at anyone here Lindal, not at all.   But it peeves me to hear some people describe those who voted 'leave' as wanting to 'live in the past'.   It is nothing of the sort - and I just wanted to try and stop the 'parroting' of silly comments.

Of course when we were younger, and we thought we were the bees knees, life was wonderful - would be very sad if it had been otherwise.  (Though you have my sympathies about London, but there was Birmingham and other places as well....

But listen to some of today's young parents - those in their 30s and 40s - and they themselvs admit that they had more freedom when they were young, than their children do today at a similar age, and they feel rather sad that their children are now missing what they themselves enjoyed. 

Now would anyone describe that as 'wanting to live in the past' ?    No, surely not;  it's a recognition that the world has changed, very quickly over the last 20 years............and that there are some aspects of today's world which are not as comfortable, or secure, as in previous generations.

As for the Christmas stuff;  I really would suggest you read some of the UK's papers, or the German ones - in which schools ARE banning references to Christmas, to the Christmas Nativity play - there's a school in Germany which has decided that they are not going to mention Christmas - 'because it might cause offence'.   There have been many such incidents - mainly in schools;  now if UK children, or european children, mainly living in a Christian culture - who are NOT allowed to enjoy the Nativity Play, or the Christmas religious Carols - because of 'causing offence' - then there is something seriously wrong happening.

And there ARE certain parts of Paris, and Germany, and cities in the UK - where wishing someone a 'Happy Christmas' might well be 'slightly dodgy'.

Let's have some honesty here, please.

As for hankering after the past - well, personally I thought I was the bees knees wearing home-made dresses (by me or my Mum), lashes of cheap eye-liner and mascara, and Miners lipsticks (remember?) etc etc.....no money, no car-owning boyfriend. none of today's luxuries - but I had a whale of a time.

And I'm enjoying life just as much now, because I don't have to get up, go to work, do the commute, put on the smart suit, etc etc.   I can have a lie-in, or a long-lie - not a problem.   I can enjoy the sunshine when I want;  I can have a drink when I want, eat out whenever I want -

and I've got far more money now than I've ever had - and I'm enjoying treating myself, my OH, and my family......life's great.   But I also know there were aspects of my younger years that I'm sorry my younger family members will have missed out on.

But please - that is not 'hankering after the past'.... and I'm so sick and tired of those who wished to 'remain' within the eu just parroting the phrase to accuse the 'leavers' without thinking.

Oh and by the way, today on LBC we had an announcer who is rubbing his hands with glee over the fact that the supposedly oldies who all voted to 'Leave' are dying off quite quickly;  he came up with 120,000 oldies dying off within a year, and saying that if there was a second referendum then the oldies would be dead - and he couldn't wait for that to happen.    Lovely attitude from a 'remainer' don't you think.   Gives all 'remainers' rather a bad image doesn't it ?

Chessie

[Gluestick]

Worth perhaps remembering The Exchange Control Act of 1947/48 was repealed by Thatcher's government in October 1979.

Hansard:

I particularly enjoyed this comment from Lord Bruce:

"We are most grateful for the additional indication of the Government's

fidelity to a Community spirit, especially at a time when some

countries, particularly France, seem bent on avoiding every regulation

that is put forward within the EEC."

Spain and many others of course, didn't remove exchange control for quite some time after 1979.

Interesting analysis of exchange controls, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany et al.

Here:

[andyh4]

Chessie wrote:

As for the Christmas stuff;  I really would suggest you read some of the UK's papers, or the German ones - in which schools ARE banning references to Christmas, to the Christmas Nativity play - there's a school in Germany which has decided that they are not going to mention Christmas - 'because it might cause offence'. 

In the interests of accuracy Chessie, the school (singular) in question is the German school in Istanbul, and the Turkish head of the school has denied the accusation that mention of Christmas has been forbidden.

http://www.rp-online.de/politik/deutschland/tuerkei-deutsche-schule-dementiert-ein-weihnachtsverbot-2016-aid-1.6472485

But hey telling stories like this all adds the xenophobia that has become populist.

As for living in the past, I have lost count of the number of people who on being interviewed say that they just want to go back to how things were in/before.......

You may not live in the past, but it seems a lot of other folk do.

[Judith]

But Chessie, none of what you describe is attributable to the EU, but to peoples' changing perceptions.  By the way, in most places, even now, if you wish someone bonnes fêtes or Joyeuse Noël you are more likely to get a greeting back of similar nature, than arguements or shots fired.  Most people are basically happy and live with their neigbours in peace and accord.

PC did not come in with the EU but with the so called multi-culturism.  And it's really only a few nutters who get really concerned about nativity plays and creches in a Christian country. 

When in Rome still rings true.

I'm off now, better things to do this Christmas.

[Gluestick]

Not quite, Judith.

Feminism was one of the drivers; now it is "Binary society dictating to no-binary people!"

i.e. Transgenders etc.

In the past few days, Oxford University has banned the use of Mr and Mrs etc.

Local Government offices up and down Britain, years back banned Christmas: called "Winterleave" instead. Nativity plays have been banned all over Europe, recently.

US companies in Britain banned Christmas cards, Christmas greetings and insisted on using anodyne descriptors such as Winter Holidays.

PC is all about anyone who might take offence: clearly, these poor weak minded little cabbages will take offence at any damned thing!

The sprawling benign and holistic influence of the EU empowered bureaucrats, sadly.

[EuroTrash]

Ban, yes but what is a ban.

I don't think the Oxford dictionary is empowered to ban anything...

Most people have enough common sense to decide for themselves what they'll say and do when nobody's looking, regardless if it's banned or not.

[woolybanana]

You are wrong on PC, Gluey. It arose from an urge to integrate new arrivals but has become a mindless weapon to beat the majority. It had little to do with the EU

Most on the enforcement and inspection mentality in the UK is our own native breeding, I am afraid though where it comes from I am not sure. The EU has never been able to go down that route as there are too many countries that ignore them - eg France, Italy ...

[lindal1000]

Quite..who cares what is 'banned'. In France now you are either monsieur or Madame; no mademoiselle , but this only applies on official business etc. In informal circles you can do what you want. On a practical level, it makes sense.

In academic settings no one has used Mr and Mrs for years, adopting the American style of using the full name, and only using academic titles such as Dr or Professor.

I've received plenty of overtly Christian Christmas cards from all over, so I can assure you they are not banned. However the tradition does seem to be dying out due to the high cost!

[Judith]

And as far as I remember, feminism occurred LONG before PC was ever thought of ...we are at a different stage of feminism now (actually now it is pretty dead, or certainly NOT called that), and PC is not helping the cause of equality for all, which is where feminism, per se, now is. 

[chessie]

I've just been watching a BBC programme - 'The Inca;  Masters of the Clouds' - has anyone else watched this 2 part series ?

Extremely interesting look at the Inca Empire - how it began, flourished - and was destroyed.

It has so many parallels with the way the eu has operated from it's beginnings as the innocently labelled 'Common Market' to what it has now morphed into, that it's extremely striking - wonder if the original founders of the so-called 'super state' of a one-nation europe had actually read about how the Incas first started their Empire building.

Mention made of how the Incas 'assimilated' neighbouring 'tribes' and regions - not by fighting - but by bribing with promises of abundant and reliable food supplies, and promising them security etc etc provided they accepted Inca domination.   How the Inca empire spread too fast which led to problems.   How taking in more and more different ethnic groups and different cultures began to lead to trouble.

Then the dreadful arrival of the Spanish, their greed for the gold, their double-dealing, their diseases - and how the Inca culture, riches and way of life was destroyed by a small group.

Has very eerie parallels with the empire building being carried out by remote unelected eukrauts and the strutting little popinjays of Juncker et al.    And the small group bringing disaster .......????

For those who missed the programme - it was extremely interesting. 

For those who watched - did anyone see the parallels with today  ?

Chessie

[Gluestick]

[quote user="EuroTrash"]Ban, yes but what is a ban.

I don't think the Oxford dictionary is empowered to ban anything...

Most people have enough common sense to decide for themselves what they'll say and do when nobody's looking, regardless if it's banned or not.[/quote]

No, ET: It is the institution, itself, not the dictionary.

Plus, but of course, the Student's Union. Who are all insane anyway, it seems...[Www]

See Here:

[Judith]

Chessie

The Roman empire went something along the same lines as the Incas.  Once conquered they "integrated" people, but the empire became too large to be properly managed, then infighting started etc etc ... parallels galore ....